Moving on

badmemory

You are right to avoid fitbit.  Since they were bought by google it is a relentless pressure to get you to pay for extras monthly & often declines to update.  I wish I had bought a diferent one but the previous one (pre-google) was great.

Cherryfudge

Watty1 said:

I was thinking this weekend that the opportunities for garden time are fading fast, and my cold dragging on is meaning I am missing them sadly so I spent 5 mins weeding.  

Feeling grotty is an added complication: it's always a balance between warmth and rest and the benefits of fresh air and making some progress. The five minutes of weeding is real progress. I'm working on being grateful for what progress I can rather than having an overall plan.

Oddly, I had a dream last night that the crew who did our path and soakaway were doing a much bigger project and I was jokingly asking when they were going to put swimming pool steps into the massive soakaway they were building!

Cherryfudge

badmemory said:

You are right to avoid fitbit.  Since they were bought by google it is a relentless pressure to get you to pay for extras monthly & often declines to update.  I wish I had bought a diferent one but the previous one (pre-google) was great.

I've gone through a few over many years and on average they lasted two years, so this is really old in comparison! DH bought a far-eastern version for under £20 and it seems to do just about the same, so I am going to investigate what's available.

Cherryfudge

I woke up with shoulder pain again, and still don't really know what it is or how I set it off. Bursitis or a frozen shoulder possibly, but I've had a frozen shoulder before and it wasn't like this (different location). Anyway I got up and had a snack and painkillers, then went back to bed with a hot water bottle, waking briefly when DH got up. I then woke up properly and found it was 11.30!

It's a beautiful day so I've had breakfast for lunch and need to get moving.

rtandon27

@Cherryfudge - I have both a 'non-brand' and a F1tbit & the branded one is by far the superior product.  I found that once I moved my F1tbit account to my G00gle account it was a much smoother experience wrt the app.  I do miss the old days of being able to log food and custom meals via a browser interface on the computer, but I also have a better idea of what portion control and balanced macros are after years of logging faithfully.

Cherryfudge

That's worth knowing, thanks @rtandon27. I used to use mine for food recording but couldn't keep up especially as I make a lot from scratch - so that's gone by the by and if I were to start again I'd probably use a different app. Interesting about moving over to G0ogle: I'd seen the option but am dragging my feet as they seem to want to know every last detail of my life one way or another and, as was pointed out elsewhere on the forum this morning, having everything dependent on the internet puts you one outage or cyberattack away from chaos.

I can see there are a few non-branded ones for sale and DH likes the one he has, but I need to have a good look at what I've actually been using before I choose. It's a bit like not needing glasses for close work, so I just got distance lenses but then realised my phone is mid-distance and didn't work with the distance lenses so I've now gone back to varifocals! I don't really know how dependent I am and need to think it through thoroughly.

Cherryfudge

I realised I didn't do a list to prepare for this week, and what a great start I've had, not getting up till lunchtime! Never mind, I don't get a huge amount done of a morning and rest is definitely a thing worth doing.

So:
Monday - have emailed a rather hefty lot of 'thoughts' to the new leader of the cleaning team. I hope it's taken as helpful not critical but she's new to the job and I was effectively doing some of her role before she came into post, as well as doing it as a paid job elsewhere. I also need to do the ironing. Tonight - paid work.
Tuesday - childcare followed by family tea with J, L and the children as they can't be there for DH's forthcoming birthday. Evening - cleaning team meeting.
Wednesday - evening - 'lifegroup' meeting.
Thursday - probably DH's other day off. If so, do the great seasonal clothes-into-and-out-of-the-loft swap around. Evening: cleaning.
Friday - evening: cleaning.
Saturday - car boot? Could go to the women's all day conference but feel I would get tired from 'peopling' all day.
Sunday - DH's birthday. Church, am. Am on tea and coffee duties as my group swapped to help out DH's group, who are in turn letting us off the hook the following week. Family walk in the afternoon if the weather holds, and pizza tea at ours. Need to do food planning but I kept notes from my birthday so we have a fair idea what is needed.

In amongst this I need to do cleaning, tidying and gardening, and I really ought to reengage with course work.

Cherryfudge

Ironing done, work too. Managed to keep out of the shops: my dinner was sweet potato with 'Coronation' chickpeas. Total gardening was emptying a pot of compost into a flower bed and putting the pot in the crate of other pots.

Cherryfudge

Another fairly frugal day: I did an Olio-advised trip to Iceland for a few half price things and got only what I planned to get, then we had tea with A, H and the girls, complete with birthday cake for DH in lieu of this weekend, as they have to be away.

We had a good day with the girls: playgroup and swings in the morning: I bought fruit bread and little oranges as healthy snacks for the walk home and we admittedly watched quite a lot of lunchtime TV. The afternoon was sunny and J came round with baby A. Little N seemed to find this was all a bit overwhelming so she took herself to bed and I went to read her some stories. She then found the music folder on my Instagram and immersed herself in French Gospel songs. She spotted it was a different language but the couple who sing have lovely voices and it was quite relaxing. Later in the day she found African music and similarly poured over that: the same song about twenty times.

J and A had had a busy day (baby cinema never used to be a thing when mine were small and I couldn't have afforded it anyway, but they had the cinema to themselves and J had a luscious coffee and cake - the world has changed!) so they left mid-afternoon. DH and I took the girls out for a ride on their scooters (little F calls it 'my doo-ter') which was rather a long process as F hasn't yet learned to scoot and N was tiring. We didn't go as far as last week but it takes a very long time to get a small child anywhere when on foot.

We had tuna pasta for tea, and chocolate cake, and DH has his gift though he's not opened it yet. A had been given a spare ticket for his favoured team so he apologetically disappeared, then it was time to supervise baths and read stories before we headed off for our cleaning team meeting, which was in turn very productive, but now we both need a rest!

Expenditure:
Housekeeping £3.45
Hobby car £40 (yesterday) for work on the indicators.

Cherryfudge

It's raining. I'd not noticed this coming so plans to go out in the garden will have to wait. Pay will be in so I need to update various things - though to be honest I've not kept a financial spreadsheet this year so it's all pen and paper. What I'd rather be doing is sorting through houseplants as nearly everything needs a larger pot and some need to be divided up and rehomed.

Once the rain stops, I've some groceries to buy and a couple more wooden spoons to make into puppets for the kids on Sunday morning. I do enjoy doing this but it takes time and resources, and I'm trying not to buy new as I have a lot of stash to use!

This evening is my group from church, but first I've a new curry recipe to try. There are yellow split peas soaking for this (yay, I finally remembered to use them). I hope they are okay - they smelled fine - as they are well out of date. However, stored in an airtight jar... probably edible.